


The Monster is Ourselves

by Rivine



Category: Undisclosed Fandom, Zone Blanche | Black Spot (TV)
Genre: Character Comes Back A Little More Wrong Every Time They Return From The Dead, Gen, Jump Scare Treat, Obsession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 14:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20547317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivine/pseuds/Rivine
Summary: Laurène won't give up any more than the forest will.





	The Monster is Ourselves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StopTalkingAtMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/gifts).

> This is set some nebulous amount of time after the end of season 1, and has no spoilers for season 2. The end notes has an additional tag that I felt was a bit spoilery for this fic.

Laurène woke to the quiet insect hum and whispering wind of the forest. She was lying under a blanket of moss, the earth cool below her, and a lingering ache across her chest, where the steering wheel had come through the air bag and hit her. It should have crushed her ribcage like an egg.

As she slowly came more awake, she realized that it probably had.

She pushed herself up until she was sitting, clumps of moss falling from her body. Faintly, she could hear someone shouting. As the last of her lethargy left her, she began to make it out.

“Laurène! Laurène!”

It was Teddy Bear, trying to find her. He hadn’t been in the car when it went off the road, thankfully. She had been alone in the crash.

“Here,” she called out, and then again, her voice stronger, “I’m here!”

“Laurène!” he yelled, with a new note of urgency. “I’m coming!”

The brush crashed, and occasional branches snapped loudly as he ran towards her. Finally, he was there, pushing his way through the ferns to her side.

“Oh, you’re alive,” and then, as he noticed her naked skin and the bright red welt on her chest, “Laurène… again?”

“I’m fine.” She used his shoulder to help pull herself to her feet. She felt cold, disoriented. “I just need to borrow your jumper until I get home.”

“You need to go to the hospital.”

“No, I don’t. I need clothes.”

He didn’t budge.

“You can see that I’m fine. Please, Teddy Bear. Just drive me home.”

He relented, as she knew he would.

***

The forest slipped past the car window as Teddy Bear drove. Laurène stared at it until it blurred.

“I’m going to request a replacement for Camille,” she said.

“What? You can’t—not yet,” Teddy Bear objected.

“We need the help.”

“Hermann will go ballistic.”

“He’ll have to accept it.”

“Laurène, you know how close he was with Camille. He needs more time.”

“He’s had all the time we can afford. He’ll get over it.”

* * *

The moss was soft, and the earth comfortable beneath her, the next time she found herself waking up in the forest. Her head only ached a little when she moved it. Their suspect—who had now proved himself the murderer in Laurène’s eyes—had hit her with something heavy and hard when she pursued him into the trees.

She had been alone when she questioned him, which wasn’t the proper procedure, but the replacement gendarme hadn’t yet arrived and Hermann had been out on his own call. Teddy Bear had the day off, and Siriani was chasing his demons with his case against the Steiners. So Laurène had gone alone, and now she woke alone, with perhaps no one at all looking for her.

That would make things easier. She could get back to her car and her spare clothes before anyone saw her. She could hide how dislocated she felt.

***

“You’re going out again?”

Laurène was startled. She hadn’t heard Cora entering the room behind her while she was packing her rucksack.

“Cora…” she said.

“Can’t you stay home even one night?”

“I have to find him,” Laurène tried to explain.

“The man in the woods? The one who might not even exist?”

“He does. I know he does, and I have to find him, Cora. It’s more important than I can say.”

“More important than me? Do you know how much I worry that one night, you won’t come back? Can’t you stay here tonight? Just for this one night?”

“I’ll be careful,” Laurène promised.

“You never are,” Cora said.

Laurène didn’t have an answer for that. Cora gave Laurène a tired, hurt look, before turning and heading back to her room.

Laurène finished packing her gear and left.

* * *

She rose from the moss a little after dawn. The forest was light with pale golden light, streaming in low, slanting beams through the trees. The shotgun blast from behind had caught her off-center, but had been enough to leave a large, bright red patch all down her side as the moss fell from her skin.

Whoever had shot her had tried to stop her for once and all, but she didn’t intend to be stopped. The man in the forest, the one who slipped between the trees with antlers on his head, was still out there, and somehow he was connected with the Steiners’ quarry.

Gérald Steiner said the quarry was being used for industrial waste storage, and Bertrand backed him up. Whether the Children of Arduinna were right that the environmental safety claims were a lie, or whether there was something else hidden and dark about the quarry, Laurène wasn’t sure. But she knew one thing, that the man in the forest had been leading her ever closer to it, and that meant that if she wanted to find him, she must unearth the quarry’s secrets.

***

Gaspard had his hands raised, his shotgun dropped to the ground, but he still refused to open the gate. Laurène kept her sight aligned on his chest.

“Open it,” she said, and then louder, “Open it now.”

“Laurène,” Hermann murrmurred. He didn’t want Gaspard to her him cautioning her. “We don’t have permission.”

“I’ll go through over your corpse if you don’t open it,” Laurène shouted at Gaspard.

“Laurène!”

She quickly lowered the gun and shot at the ground before Gaspard’s feet. He flinched, badly, and she had his chest back in her sight before he had a chance to recover.

Teddy Bear slid up beside her, closer than Laurène had realized. He must have started edging towards her before she fired. He put a hand on her arm.

“Put it down,” he told her. He sounded desperate, frightened. “You can’t do this.”

“I have to,” she said.

“We’ll get in another way,” he cajoled. “Please, Laurène. We’ll find your answers.”

“We haven’t yet.”

“You could lose your job over this as it is.”

He pressed down on her arm harder, so she had to let it drop or twist out of his grip. Reluctantly, she let her arms fall. Teddy Bear tried to pull the gun out of her hand, but she yanked it from his groping fingers and holstered it.

She walked back to the car, not listening to Teddy Bear and Hermann’s worried whispers behind her. They didn’t matter. Only finding the man who haunted the forest mattered.

* * *

She didn’t have it in her to do what she must, to strip back all of Bertrand’s lies and evasions, to force him to tell her the truth about the quarry and help her find the natlered man. Finding him was the most important thing, the one thing she must do however much pain it cost. The man had the answers—he was the answer. She had to find him.

But Laurène knew she couldn’t bear to do it. She couldn’t bring herself to cut through all of Bertrand’s denials and rip the answers from his mouth. She wasn’t ready to cross that line and shed that blood.

Laurène balanced on the slick, mossy edge of the cliff, the water roaring below her in its channel. She wasn’t ready _yet_.

***

Laurène opened her eyes to the canopy of branches above her.

**Author's Note:**

> Suicide done to trigger the "comes back a little more wrong every time" part.


End file.
